BestBuy Enters The Streaming Content Market With Music Cloud

Following the trend of music lockers in the cloud, Best Buy is set to launch its new cloud-based music service.

According to 9 to 5 Mac the Richfield, Minnesota-based web retail company has decided to sync its music in the cloud under the name Music Cloud.

The service enables users to save their music on its servers and stream it anywhere that supports PlayAnywhere technology by Catch Media. The service also offers applications for iPhone, Blackberry and Android owners.

The service is available in two versions, Lite which is free of charge but limits users to the first 30 seconds of most songs, and Premium, which will cost users $3.99 per month for full access. Interestingly, the service only works if it is connected to the iTunes library. It does not run Window's Media Player or directly from the folders on the desktop. The company has posted details to install the software for iTunes users in its blog post.

Music Cloud allows users to store their music locally as well in order to stream them even while offline, unlike Research In Motion (RIM) and Apple. But since users still have to use iTunes, it's not clear if this is enough of a difference to steal customers from Apple's recently launched iCloud service.